Sort of.
JUST ONE MORE IMPORTANT EXPLANATION
JUST ONE MORE IMPORTANT EXPLANATION
While I am having fun keeping you in suspense about which incarnations are the "True Visually Comedic Doctors", I do think I should get something important out of the way. Some of you may have a hard time accepting a choice that I've made so I want to explain my reasoning behind it. Let's just break it to you:
Tom Baker won't be on this list.
As stated in the Prologue, I am only looking at actors who made visual comedy a core element of their performance. Yes, there is a period during Tom's time as the Doctor where he is using sight gags all over the place. But there are also parts of his era where we don't see him being all that visually funny at all. He's still, in some instances, being quite silly. But it was more with dialogue than actions.
The Fourth Doctor's period of extreme visual comedy, in my opinion, starts up somewhere during Season Fifteen (right around The Sunmakers, if you want to get really specific) and keeps building up as he goes on. During the seventeenth season, it comes to a climax. I'd even go so far to say that no Doctor acts more like a buffoon than Tom Baker does during that particular series.
Seasons Twelve, Thirteen and Fourteen do have a Fourth Doctor being silly. Both with speech and action. Right in his first season, we have tales like Robot and Revenge of the Cybermen, where Baker is going quite hard for the laughs. But we also have stories like Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars or Seeds of Doom where, for the most part, he's playing things pretty straight. He's even quite grim, in places. This strikes me more as an actor who is actually trying to bring out equal measures of comedy and drama in his portrayal. In Tom's case, he almost seems to be picking entire stories where he keeps things serious. And then deciding to just be a big goof during other adventures.
Feeling that Tom had gone too far with the humor during his penultimate season, the new production team that rolls in at the beginning of Season Eighteen consciously choose to reign him in. Again, there are fun jokes here and there. Some are even quite visual. But, overall, he is a much more stoic Doctor with only hints of whimsy. Rather than the huge clown he had been in the previous season.
For over four of the seven seasons that he played the role, Tom Baker only seemed to pay so much attention to creating sight gags. There were even conscious efforts to inject more comedy into the dialogue during those "more serious" seasons. But the visual stuff wasn't so important.
Which means that, to me at least, he does not truly qualify as a visually comedic Doctor. There are too many gaps in his tenure where he just didn't rely that much on this style of humor.
I hope my elimination of him doesn't incense some of you.
FINALLY! SOME PROPER REVIEWING!
All right, we really have made things as clear as possible. Time to start revealing who did make it onto the list. We'll go in chronological order:
Patrick Troughton - The Second Doctor
This one seems pretty obvious. Particularly since his use of visual comedy stands out in such harsh contrast to the man he has just replaced. Also, the fact that we had no idea the Doctor even could regenerate makes us notice how silly he is all-the-more. Like Ben and Polly, we are in a near state of shock and are almost wondering if this really is the same character. He really has changed radically from the more serious portrayal that Hartnell gave for more than three seasons.
Okay, let's start using the Points of Criteria to see how well he does:
How Well the Jokes Land 8
First and foremost, we need to factor in a certain handicap. One that will decrease as we move on in time. Patrick Troughton's era took place in the late 60s. Back then, the ability to re-shoot things was kept to a bare minimum. We can see this clearly with all the "accidental visual comedy" that occurs during this period. Props fail to work (like that sliding panel in the opening shot of The Krotons) but the camera just keeps rolling. This means, of course, that poor old Patrick did not get the opportunity to try to re-do a lot of his attempts at comedy that didn't succeed so well. A mistimed gesture will often remain immortalised on film.
With that in mind, however, we should still be impressed with his score. Because, most of the time, the man would just nail the joke magnificently. Particularly when he had Frazer Hines backing him up. Moments like when the Doctor and Jamie accidentally hold each others' hands during Tomb of the Cybermen are, pretty much, gold.
How Well it's Counterbalanced Against the Drama 7
This is an area where I think the Second Doctor does suffer a bit. Patrick does create some gloriously subtle moments of real drama. His speech about fighting the evils of the Universe during The Moonbase or the quiet talk he has with Victoria during Tomb of the Cybermen are a few really striking examples that come to mind. But I do think that, in the greater scheme of things, he should have found more moments like these. There are periods in certain stories where the actor chooses to be too comedic for too long. Which can actually wear an audience down and make us less appreciative of the jokes being made. This doesn't happen too often. Which is why he's still at a "Seven" for his score. But they happen enough to make it noticeable. I would even say that this is one of the few substantial flaws that exist in the performance of this incarnation.
Room for Improvisation 10
If he lost some points in the previous category, he makes up for it here.
Adding all these extra little bits of visual comedy to his scenes was an almost constant desire for Troughton. He made a supreme effort to liven up every second he was onscreen in any way he could. Even if you don't normally recognize when something is being improvised by a performer, it was still pretty damned easy to spot these moments. Most of the time, you could just sense that something spontaneous seemed to be happening.
Learning the stories behind all these moments is actually quite entertaining. Troughton actually had a whole system in place to get a lot of his ideas approved. He would come up with a visual bit during rehearsal. When presenting it to the director, he would make the sequence far more outlandish than he truly intended. He would then get reigned in to the level where he actually wanted to be at. Finally, because it felt like a compromise between him and production, they would let most of his extra bits stay in. After all, he had been quite reasonable about the whole thing!
It was quite brilliant, really. And it made so many scenes that could have been much duller shine.
Overall Aesthetics 9
A near-perfect score, here. Troughton gets his character delineation down pretty quickly and gives us very curious posture and mannerisms. While there is very little video evidence left of the earliest part of his era, we do see him going a bit too big in some of the footage that still exists. As he collects scraps for analysis during The Moonbase or becomes some sort of tambourine-playing gypsy during that awful chase scene in Underwater Menace, he does seem to almost be trying a bit too hard. Whereas he does start becoming more confident with what he wants to with his body language by the time he reaches The Faceless Ones. Things do feel much less forced as his first season comes to a close. After that, I can't think of a time where the physical disposition that Troughton chose in any given moment didn't seem to work. How he holds himself as he gets ready to veer into a visually funny moment (or take things in a more serious direction, for that matter) is sheer brilliance. He truly is a master of body language. Oftentimes conveying so much more by what he does than what he is says. Which, if you're going to rely heavily on physical comedy, is a talent you need in abundance.
Personal Taste 9
And now, at last, a moment to purely express my own blow-hard opinion. How do I feel about the visual comedy of Doctor Two?
It's hard not to laugh at Troughton's onscreen shenanigans. He just does so well with it. It's especially impressive how he actually manages to steal the show a lot when he reprises the role for the first time in The Three Doctors. The way he just sort of traipses about like a fool throughout the whole adventure is absolutely hilarious.
Some fans do argue that referring to his performance as "Chaplinesque" is a bit of a misnomer. I tend to agree with the sentiment. I do adore Chaplin's work and have studied him quite thoroughly. About the only time Troughton truly seems to emulate him is during some parts of Seeds of Death. Otherwise, I find he's doing more of his own thing. While I would have loved a Chaplin impersonation, what we do get is equally-magnificent.
Sylvester McCoy - The Seventh Doctor
Created through a behind-the-scenes Baptism of Fire, the Seventh Doctor stayed with the show til its bitter end in 1989. Because of the energy he brought to the role, Sylvester McCoy helped to make the show go out in style rather than fizzle out in shame. Much of that energy was seen through all the fun that he had with physical comedy. Like Troughton (who he openly sites as a source of inspiration), he always looked for opportunities to inject extra little bits of visual humor into everything he could.
It was because of that ongoing effort that Sylvester becomes our second candidate in this Review Overview.
How Well the Jokes Land 9
With Doctor Seven, we will reduce that "not able to do re-takes" handicap slightly. The show was still made somewhat-hastily in the 80s, but conditions were much better than they had been during Troughton's time. Some of McCoy's worst fumbles were probably fixed. But some lesser ones remained and will be, ever-so-slightly forgiven.
Having said all that, I do feel McCoy's timing was near-impeccable. There were a few moments during Season 24 where things felt a bit forced or ill-timed. Particularly during Time and the Rani (but this is also where he is forgiven the most since the story must have been an absolute nightmare to make!). Which is why he doesn't quite get a Perfect Ten. But, for the most part, McCoy's delivery is truly amazing. His very unique career prior to Doctor Who definitely honed his skills immeasurably.
How Well it's Counterbalanced Against the Drama 9
Again, a near-perfect score that is only marred by some of the Season 24 stuff. During that period, things did seem a tad too skewed in the comedic direction and it does feel like McCoy makes a few bad choices with how he plays certain moments.
Some fans have remarked on how Seven doesn't seem to deliver an appropriate level of seriousness when he yells. They even feel it's a shortcoming on the ability of the actor. I actually think the gesture was intentional. That he was actually trying to show that, when this Doctor is reduced to yelling, he becomes ineffectual. If you watch, he's usually only doing it when he's losing control of a situation. Whereas we have other dramatic scenes where he doesn't bother to raise his voice and delivers to perfection. Talking the Supreme Dalek into destroying himself during Remembrance is a great example that shows Seven can deliver intensity when he needs to. He is wholly confident in what he's doing in that scene and it comes through clearly. Whereas his shouts seem to be more of a moment where his confidence his wavering. and the actor is trying to convey that by being slightly more comedic in the interpretation. So, for me, he doesn't lose points for this.
Room for Improvisation 10
Like Troughton, I do believe he merits a perfect score. He tackled all his scenes with that same sort vigor. Any little opportunity he had to spice things up with a visual gag was taken. And, like Doctor Two, he had a good little partner-in-crime. In this case, it was Sophie Aldred. The two loved creating fun little moments. That shot of them during Silver Nemesis where they are resting on the side of a hill listening to the jazz music that is confounding the Cybermen cracks me up every time. That scene could have been so much simpler and still be mildly amusing. But the way McCoy chooses to do that crazy backwards flip to get back on his feet creates such a great little effect.
It's constant little additions of visual humor or even acrobatic dexterity that make him do so well in this category. In fact, I'm almost tempted to give him an Eleven for this!
Again, we often get clear impressions that such moments were not in the original script. But, rather, something that was made up to enhance the performance.
Overall Aesthetics 8
This will be his weakest score. And, even then, he's doing pretty damned good!
Season 24, once again, hurts him a bit. McCoy does flounder for quite a while as he's trying to truly find the character. Some of this, of course, is reflected in the mannerisms he assigns to the character. There are a few significant times where his entire delineation does seem a bit off.
But in his other two seasons, he is so perfect in the way he holds himself that he makes a few points back. There is this great sort of nervous energy that he gives to the character (again, inspired partly by the same sort of vibe Two had) that is beautifully counterbalanced by a sense of grace or even elegance. It's very symbolic of the Seventh Doctor's emotional traits. He seems very bumbling most of the time but can suddenly become almost super-human in the way he defeats his enemies. The very way in which he moves conveys so much about who this incarnation is.
I would even go so far to say that very few actors can deliver body language as effectively as Sylvester McCoy does. He is truly a master at it.
Personal Taste 10
Another perfect score, here. I really do think the visual comedy of Sylvester McCoy is a legitimate work of art.
Admittedly, it helps him a lot that I am a huge fan of vaudevillian comedy. Which is something Seven excels at. I have even gone to the trouble of finding some of his old performances on stage (the easiest one to dig up is The Secret Policemen's Other Ball - it's utterly hilarious!) which has deepened my appreciation of him all-the-more.
All the extra little talents that he brings to the role are what truly get me to fall in love with him as a visual comedian. His love of spoon-playing and performing magic tricks or even his light acrobatics are such wonderful little touches. I particularly adore Episode Four of Greatest Show in the Galaxy where they really allow him to show off those abilities. Doctor Who becoming a legitimate vaudeville act for the better part of an episode was so delightfully surreal!!
Once more, our word-count is starting to get up there. So this seems a good place to end things, for now. We have one more Doctor to cover and then a final tally to take. Also, if I haven't droned on for too long, I'll recommend a story for each of these Doctors that I feel does the best job of showing off their talents at visual comedy.
Stay tuned for Part Two....
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